Multi criteria decisions making approach to choose 'integrators' in Malaysian local broiler industry

Abstract

The Malaysian broiler industry is an integral component of the agriculture sector that generates sustainable food supplies to almost 30 million populations in the country. The industry comprises of conventional and commercial farms for which the latter is more sustainable with contract farming schemes and involvement of major integrators and growers. The survival of local growers as one of the important players within broiler's supply chain hierarchy is largely depending on the integrators. Hence, this study aims to identify important factors that local growers consider when selecting their integrators. Specifically, the objectives are to prioritize integrators' selection factors and to determine the critical ranking of each factor that will be beneficial to the local growers. A MCDM approach in the form of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) is employed to evaluate and rank the importance of the said factors based on inputs from selected broilers' representatives. Five main criteria are considered in the AHP analysis that include relationships, reliability, logistics, input and price. The result indicates that reliability had the highest priority, followed by pricing factor, input criteria, relationships with the integrator, and finally the logistics facility. For overall sub-criteria, supplied quantity is ranked number one, followed by price of raw materials, availability of day-old chick, quality conformance, technology sharing, and in-house logistics facility. At the end of the study, future research avenues are suggested.